House Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) used facts from the FBI to shatter Chair James Comer’s Biden pay to play allegation.
Raskin said in a statement provided to PoliticusUSA:
In the spirit of good faith, the FBI has offered Chairman Comer yet further accommodations in response to his subpoena, including to allow all Oversight Committee Members to review in camera the second-hand allegations by Ukrainian individuals reported in the tip sheet. Chairman Comer’s acceptance of these further accommodations comes after he has spent weeks attacking the FBI despite its extraordinary efforts to provide Committee Republicans the information they claim to seek.
As part of the FBI’s ongoing efforts to accommodate the Committee, it confirmed several key facts that Committee Republicans are attempting to distort. Namely, that the assessment conducted by a team of prosecutors and FBI agents from the Trump Department of Justice—under the supervision of then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady—was opened in January 2020 to evaluate claims made by Rudy Giuliani that information he collected in Ukraine showed President Biden and his son were involved in a corruption scheme. In August 2020, the FBI, Mr. Brady, and other high-level Justice Department officials signed off on shutting down the assessment. This decision was made after considering information collected and reviewed by Mr. Brady’s team, including suspicious activity reports and second-hand allegations described by a confidential human source and memorialized in the Form FD-1023. These are the facts.
These facts lead us to an obvious conclusion: that after months of investigating Mr. Giuliani’s allegations, the Trump Justice Department concluded that the evidence failed to justify further inquiry. Despite repeated confirmation by the FBI, Committee Republicans prefer to ignore the facts that undermine their false narratives.
Holding someone in contempt of Congress is among the most serious actions our Committee can take and it should not be weaponized to undermine the FBI. As Republicans’ investigation into President Biden has uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing, they continue to attempt to discredit and dismantle the FBI to help prop up Donald Trump’s poll numbers.
Comer later announced that he was canceling the contempt vote and claimed that the FBI caved to his demands, but that is not what happened. Rep. Comer has been demanding the release of the debunked document to Republicans so that they can release it publicly as a weapon to smear President Biden.
The document is not being released publicly, but all of the committee are allowed to view the document in a secure area.
Comer didn’t win anything. In fact, he blinked as it unclear as that he had the full number of votes in the House to find Wray in contempt.
Chair Comer backed down as Jamie Raskin blew a hole in his conspiracy.